Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Best Organizing Tips for Incoming Info

Hello! Welcome to my blog where I will let you in on all of the best organizing tips for every area of your home! Organizing doesn't have to be hard. Attacking it just a little bit at a time is the best way to approach it. And, the dividends you will receive by having a neat and organized home (and life) will far outweigh the time you spent on these organizing tips. Ready - lets get started!

Today's topic - In boxes in your email, your mailbox and your brain.

It seems like more and more we spend more and more of our time on upkeep of our mail. It used to be once a day via snail mail, then we added email, Facebook, Twitter and all other universes out there. Makes me yearn for the Pony Express! One interruption a day - sounds blissful doesn't it? Well, it's never coming back, so it's up to you to organize all the info that comes at you each day, not to mention the items you put on your own to do list. How in the world do you organize it all? I'm here to help.

Here are some of my tried and true ideas to tame the onslaught of "ins" we get every day. (Thanks Amy for the topic idea!)

  1. check your email a maximum of 3 times a day. Deal with the incoming right then, don't in essence "put it into a later pile". Just like you shouldn't do this with your snail mail, don't do it with your email. Send off any answers you can right then. Take a minute to unsubscribe from any spam before you delete it. It takes a few extra seconds right then, but it will pay off in the long run. Just because you signed up form something once doesn't mean you need to keep receiving their spam. Nip it in the bud and delete away. And delete any messages from friends that are no longer relevant. Anything you need to keep, move it into a saved file and weed through it often. Just think of email maintenance as something you spend a few minutes on each day and eventually you will be on top of it. Chip away at it a bit at a time.
  2. snail mail - open all snail mail over a recycling bin. Toss everything you can, sort what is left into piles. 
                                 1st pile - Future reading - magazines and such,        
                                 2nd pile - Deal with now -  dental appt. reminders, bills, etc. I'm not a fan of saving up all your bills and doing them once a week. Since so many are via the computer, it now makes more sense to just take care of them the same day they come in. And you never get backlogged. Try doing it at night right after you check your email for the last time.
                                  3rd pile - File - file it now, not later. And be sure to sign opt out of junk mail. click here for directions.

     3.To do lists in your mind. If you aren't working off a to do list each day, you should. It makes you much more productive and keeps you sane. But be sure to write it down. Free your mind from the constant babble of your list.I like to put it on a pad with a magnet on the back so it hangs on the side of my fridge. Easy for me to see, but not out in front of everyone else. And get yourself a big red pen or pencil so you can cross off things as you do them. You can keep the same list going for a few days. When you complete most the items on the list, just transfer over whatever remains to a new list. If you find yourself transferring the same item over and over, time to reanalyse that item. You are never going to do it. Can someone else take care of it for you? Or can it just be deleted? Be honest and deal with it. And then recycle the original list. The feeling you get from recycling that list is very empowering!

That's it! Those organizing ideas should help you take care of the "ins" in your mind and life.Remember, start small and add more as you can. Don't overwhelm yourself - slow and steady does it!

 If you would like more organizing tips, find more in my eBook, 30 Days to an Organized Home, by clicking on the title. Also available on Kindle.

 be organized!.....evelyn

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